Fans rage against the scalpers

By Asher Moses

Australian Rage Against The Machine fans are now raging against cyber-scalpers and Ticketmaster after tickets to the rock band's local shows sold out within seconds yesterday.

The tickets to the Sydney and Melbourne gigs went on sale at 9am and within minutes scalpers were listing them on eBay at a significant premium.

General admission floor tickets, which had a face value of $111.70, are now selling on the auction site for over five times that amount.

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Enraged fans who had been hoping to see the shows, scheduled for January next year, were so dismayed they attempted to sabotage the eBay auctions by registering fake accounts and entering bogus bids as high as $1 billion.

Cyber-scalping has ramped up in recent years but, unlike Victoria and Queensland, the NSW government has been slow to regulate the re-sale of entertainment tickets.

eBay, which profits from the on-selling of tickets, has lobbied heavily against the introduction of anti-scalping laws, saying it's up to promoters to ensure tickets are sold to "real fans" only.

NSW Office of Fair Trading spokeswoman Helena Baric said: "Government is aware of public concerns about ticket scalping as it's been a long-standing issue and really one with no simple solution. There is no current prohibition on scalping but the government continues to look at a number of options in relation to possible regulatory activity."

Belinda Andronicos from the Blue Mountains logged in to the Ticketmaster website well before 9am yesterday, in the hope of obtaining Rage Against The Machine tickets for herself and her 15-year-old son.

"As soon as it clicked over 9am I was there trying to get tickets and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, and by 9.01 i'm thinking, how is this possible?," she said.

"A lot of people missed out and are very very angry because scalpers are taking advantage of it."

One disgruntled fan decided to rally troops on eBay by creating a fake auction listing, condemning the scalpers for reckless profiteering.

Within hours the auction page was flooded with comments - published in the questions section - from other fans who had also missed out on tickets. The listing has now been removed from eBay.

"There were people who had camped out for 12 hours overnight waiting in the line, and they were fifth in the line and didn't get a single ticket," said Andronicos.

"If the music promoter doesn't like scalpers then they should stop selling tickets to them, and we've seen music promoters do exactly that," he said.

The promoters of Splendour in the Grass, an annual music festival held just outside Byron Bay, were last year forced to change their ticketing system after a mass protest by music fans against ticket scalping.

Those looking to buy tickets for the 2006 event were forced to register their name and date of birth, which were printed on the event tickets, at the time of purchase. Those attending the event had to provide valid identification in order to gain entry.

Ticketmaster, in email messages to disgruntled Rage Against The Machine fans, rejected rumours it had started selling the tickets early.

It said it was common for tickets to popular events to sell out within minutes and told fans they could still see the band at next year's Big Day Out festival, tickets to which go on sale next month.

But Andronicos said that was no consolation, and insisted the ticketing system needs to be changed.

"There was the ability to buy six tickets and people were buying six tickets and then selling six tickets - it's just wrong," she said.

Andronicos, like many others, said the problem could easily be fixed if music promoters printed names on tickets or if eBay made a rule stipulating members could not sell tickets for a price that was more than 10 per cent above the original cost.

In the absence of those controls, the NSW Office of Fair Trading advises consumers to exercise caution when buying resold tickets from eBay or other unauthorised outlets.

"People ... need to be aware of the risks and they are that the ticket may not be genuine or they may find that the condition of sale on the ticket may prevent reselling, and therefore render the ticket invalid," said Baric.

But Baric acknowledged that the terms and conditions printed on tickets were rarely enforced.